Change your point of view.

Looking at the news about the AIG bonus scandal this morning, I'm reminded that managers of large companies must make their peace with the idea that these institutions exist by consent of customers, investors, employees and society at large. All of them must be well served and their judgment on whether they're being well served or not is becoming more and more discriminating.

Increasingly, executive success pivots not on data and information but on interpretation - the ability to quickly make meaning out of still-emerging patterns. In a changing world, the name of the game is improvisation and innovation, not repeating standard responses. As former San Francisco 49er coach, Bill Walsh, once noted, “More than creating, innovation involves anticipating. It’s having a broad base of knowledge on your subject and the ability to see where the game is headed.”

Many senior managers appear to assume that layoffs and downsizing are inevitable in today's economy. But they're only inevitable if senior management hasn’t done its job. That job isn’t to run the business but to grow the business and to create new businesses. That’s supposedly is what the big money's for, creating a healthy top line as well as a healthy bottom line. When that doesn’t happen, people lower down in the company are forced to pay for the incompetence of those higher up. Downsizing is often a way to hide mistakes rather a necessary business strategy.

As Morris Massey reminds us, don’t let a past you can’t change write your future script. Many people still make decisions based on gut-level values formed when they were 20-years old. They should be making decisions with an eye to the future instead. That way, they won’t let their past overtake their future.

If you haven't seen them before, consider viewing Morris Massey’s videos which are available at www.enterprisemedia.com:
- What you are is where you were when....
- What you are is not what you have to be ....
- What you are is where you can see ....

Redefine, redesign and recreate your future by shifting your point of view. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes” - Marcel Proust